Schumer goes hunting, bags Nelson

The perils of political hunting trips range from mockery — as with Sen. John Kerry’s (D-Mass.) expensive gear — to mortal danger — as in ending up on the wrong end of Dick Cheney’s 28-gauge.

But Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) had another story in mind when he traveled recently to Nebraska, a cautionary tale told to him early in his career by an older, urban-oriented New Jersey congressman who had made the mistake of accepting a hunting invitation from a Midwestern colleague.

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“He shot the dog,” Schumer recalled, referring to the outcome of the Jersey pol’s inept marksmanship.

Schumer did not shoot the dog. He bagged three pheasants. And six weeks later, he bagged Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), serving as key negotiator as Nelson held the fate of landmark health care legislation in the balance.

While the two Senate Democrats didn’t spend their morning in a field outside Omaha talking business, the hunting trip will go down as a key, if unconventional, detour on the road to the Democrats’ most important modern legislative accomplishment.

The senator from Brooklyn woke up early the morning of Nov. 8, a day after he’d watched Nebraska thump Oklahoma on the gridiron. He put on a blaze orange hunting vest and hat, refusing only the boots (“too big”). He received a crash course on shotgun safety and marveled at the dogs.

“They were just amazing,” he said of the pointers and retrievers. “I always thought hunting dogs were just for companionship.”

Then the senator from New York saw a pheasant, took aim and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.

“He didn’t get the safety off, so he couldn't shoot,” his host, Nelson, recalled with a chuckle Tuesday morning. “You have to push the safety off to shoot. He figured that out.”

The next pheasant wasn’t so lucky.

“He thought I shot it,” said Nelson. “I said, ‘No, I know I didn’t shoot ‘cause I didn’t shoot.’ And I said, ‘So you either scared it to death or you hit it.’ He was ready to jump up and down.”

Schumer bagged, his companions told him, three pheasants that early November day in Nebraska, though he was “never 100 percent sure they weren’t helping me.”

Schumer and Nelson's friendship began in 2005, when Schumer was named chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Nelson was considering retiring instead of seeking reelection in a conservative-oriented state in 2006, and Schumer told POLITICO that when he assumed the DSCC chairmanship, Nelson was his first call.